


The Point, Gentlemen

by Lanerose



Category: Avengers: Endgame - Fandom, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Don't copy to another site, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 12:04:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18637777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanerose/pseuds/Lanerose
Summary: Endgame Fix-It.  If you've seen the movie, you can probably guess what's being fixed.CONTAINS ENDGAME SPOILERS





	The Point, Gentlemen

Stark snaps his fingers, and Thanos and his allies begin to drift away.  This is the moment that Stephen Strange has known was coming since he put the stone in Thanos’s hand.  Since he made the deal that erased him from existence and only recently brought him back.  It’s the moment when the weight of the Time Stone settles once more in the locket around his neck, comforting and familiar and ready for him to resume its guardianship.

There isn’t much time.

“Miss Potts!”  He shouts.  “The red stone!  Remove it from the glove, and focus on what you want most in this moment!”

“Listen, good sir, I think the lady – “ T’challa tries to intervene.

“Miss Potts!”  Dr. Strange repeats.  “I cannot come closer without creating a singularity.  The red stone!  You must take the red stone.  Now!”

“Really, I think – “

“If we are going to save his life, she must take the stone, and take it now!”  He says quickly.  T’Challa’s eyes widen.

“Miss Potts!” T’Challa yells, running to her. “The red stone!  Grab the red stone!”

The Supreme Sorcerer slows time around Wakanda’s King, giving him a few precious additional second to cross the quiet battlefield, and prays it is enough.

~

“We’ll be all right,” Pepper says softly, her hand on Tony’s face as she smiles through the tears she refuses to shed.  They can fall in a few minutes, when it will no longer matter.  They can fall for years, when he won’t know.  For now, she will give him this.  “Don’t worry.”

Tony can’t speak, but she can see that he understands.  The light in his eyes is starting to phase.

“ – red stone!” Someone behind her is screaming.  “Grab the red stone!”

She looks down to where Tony’s gauntlet his fallen, and grabs the stone half without thinking. If she cannot save Tony’s life, she will not let anything else destroy the world. 

_It burns._

It burns, but compared to the fire that had been Extremis, it is nothing.  And she can see it now.  Can see why someone had screamed for her to take the stone up.  The Reality Stone shows her the world as it is, but also as it can be, and she forces reality to bend without any further hesitation. 

Before her eyes, Tony’s body begins to heal, the wilted portions of his torso expanding back. The gray tone that had attached to his skin falls away, and a healthy glow comes back.  His breath, which had been laboring, comes even once again.  He takes in a deep breath and when he speaks it is everything she thought was lost.

“What would I do without you, Pep?” he says, and smiles.

The stone falls from her hand.  Pepper flings herself forward and wraps him in her arms.

“Let’s hope you never have to find out.”

~

Afterwards, it is time to rebuild.  The world has gone without half its population for five years, and no amount of universe-bending magic can fix that in an instant.  Those who were gone return to a world that has moved on without them.  And those who remained scarcely know what to do, now that the nightmare of the past five years has ended. 

“ – hold Captain America personally responsible for the end of my marriage,” a woman is saying on a broadcast one night three weeks later.  “I understand that at the time they didn’t think we’d be coming back, but what I am I supposed to do when the man I love has decided that there’s another woman he loves more than me?”

The television clicks off.

“I was watching that,” Rogers complains from the couch, turning to where Bruce and Tony have entered the room.

“Yes,” Thor replies from a nearby arm chair, “I wanted to hear more about the Captain’s disastrous influence on the amorous affairs of the every day citizen.”

“You really shouldn’t torture yourself like that, Cap,” Bruce interjects.  “Statistically, half the marriages in existence at the time of the erasure would have ended anyway.  You just made sure some of them ended a lot faster from one person’s perspective than the other’s.”

“Moving on!” says Tony. “We’ve got the time travel machine back together and Pym’s given us more than enough particles to get the stones back where they belong.  Where’s Barton?”

“He’s with Laura and the kids, why?” says Steve.  “Can’t we handle the stones among ourselves?”

“Most of them, sure,” Tony waves a hand dismissively.  “But Strange has been… well… _strange_ about the Soul Stone.  Says Barton has to be the one to return it.”

“Did he say why?” Steve asks.  “After what happened with Natasha, I’m not sure…  I mean, that’s a lot to ask of him.”

“As a matter of fact, no, the incredibly cryptic master of time has shockingly decide to continue to be incredibly cryptic and not provide any details,” Tony replies.  “Just get him here.”

~

“No.” 

Tony isn’t surprised when it’s the first thing that Clint says to him.  It’s all Clint’s said to anyone, which is why Tony has bothered to take the time away from Pep and Morgan to take his turn at convincing the archer.

“Robin Hood.”

“No.”

“Birdbrain.”

“No.”

“Barton –“

“No.”

“Strange says it has to be you,” Tony blurts out.

Clint stops at that. “Did he say why?”

“Does he ever say why?” Tony shakes his head.  “Listen, I know what you’ve got here and why you wouldn’t want to risk it – of all of us, I probably know the best, because if the situation was reversed and you were trying to get me to leave Pep and Morgan, there’s no way I’d go.”

“Then why – “

“Because it has to be you.” Tony sighs.  “I don’t know why.  But Strange saved my life twice so far, and if he’s crazy, it might not be the bad kind.”

“You should go,” Laura says, stepping around the door and offering Clint his quiver.  “Be home for dinner?”

She kisses him lightly. Clint takes the arrows, running a hand down gently across her cheek.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he replies.

~

He doesn’t go alone, of course.  With all the time in the world and plenty of Pym’s particles to go around, there’s no reason to take that risk.  Still, the so-called Guardians of the Galaxy probably wouldn’t have been his preferred travel companions if he’d had any options.

“I am Groot,” the tree in the seat next to him grumbles.

“If you say so?”  Clint replies.

“Everybody quiet, we’re landing!” The quote-unquote captain Quil announces.

The planet is every bit as depressing as Clint remembers it being.  The ghost-like figure hasn’t left, which is a mercy, because Clint has no idea how he was supposed to get the stone back into whatever hidden rift had been protecting it on his own.  He wishes Natasha were here with him to lighten the mood.

“Hey,” Clint says, as it hovers like something out of Harry Potter in front of him.  He holds up the stone.  “Can I interest you in an exchange?”

The dementor-esque creature nods.  “The terms are fair.”

“I’m sorry, terms?” Clint says, but the stone is already vanishing from his grasp.  The creature withdraws as a glowing light emerges from the rift, floating slowly and steadily higher.  Clint turns his head away, lifting an arm to try and shield his eyes.  When he finally manages to force them open again, he doesn’t believe them.

“Think this one might even top Budapest,” Natasha says, standing straight and tall, her hair as perfect as if she had just finished doing it and how did death manage that?

“Yeah,” Clint says when his lungs remember how to breathe.  “It might.  We’ll have to figure out what this place is called for later.”

“Can we go home now?” she asks with a breathless laugh.

Clint laughs in reply and reaches out to draw her into a tight hug.  “Yeah, we can do that.”

“Gonna have to let go of me so we can get on the spaceship,” she says, but Clint turns and starts stumbling towards it with his hand on her waist.

“Never gonna happen,” he replies.

~

Laura and the kids are ecstatic when Aunt Natasha joins them for dinner. 

Laura’s a little less ecstatic when the original Avengers team from New York decides to join, too, plus their families, but Stark orders pizza for everyone so she lets it slide given the whole resurrection thing.

There will be time to sort out the rest in the years ahead.

**Author's Note:**

> "And while Cinderella and her Prince did live happily ever after, the point, gentlemen, is that they lived." from Ever After: A Cinderella Story
> 
> ~
> 
> I'll be honest, part of me actually really liked the way that Avengers: Endgame ended. BUT part of me was sitting there screaming about some pretty obvious ways that the deaths could have been avoided. Also, I spent too long in the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom to not mentally scream about equivalent exchange when they were talking about putting the stones back. SO! Now there's this and we can all have our cake and eat it too. Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.


End file.
